


What My Heart Wants To Say.

by palegingerade



Category: The Young Ones (TV 1982)
Genre: Angst, Dark, First Kiss, Fix-It, Happy Ending, I still struggle to watch the end of Summer Holiday, Injured Rick, M/M, Sad Vyvyan, but it has a nice end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 06:22:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8390587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palegingerade/pseuds/palegingerade
Summary: The bus had gone over the cliff. It's the very end of an era. But Vyvyan isn't willing to let go just yet. He still has things he needs to say to Rick. I don't normally write angst, but expect angst like whoa... and then a happy ever after. The one after the crash.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still very much writing my others, so don't give up on me. Sometimes only angst will do.

Vyvyan feels something inside of him snap at the long, uninterrupted beep of the electrocardiogram.

He knows he's awake but that this is also a nightmare; it hurts so bad it's got to be real but all other sense of reality is nowhere to be found. He's gone through all of the correct motions but his mind is absent and he's completely unable to do anything other than chase his thoughts into a blur.

He was the one who'd called the ambulance. He'd raced back from the phone box and had stayed with Rick at the scene, said all the right things, helped the paramedics load him onto the stretcher. He'd steadied the oxygen mask over Rick's nose and mouth when his own air supply grew thinner and he eventually passed out.

Now he's pressed tight to the glass of the operating theatre staring at Rick, but at the same time he can't watch. His mind is still racing. His scream still blood-curdling and raw in his ears.

_"Do something! You have to do something, please! No pulse. He's not breathing. Please, just leave me, he's my friend. He's my friend, please.."_

"Still no response."

He's brought back to the gray of the hospital by the shrill doctors voice. Vyvyan's eyes quickly scan between the electrocardiogram and Rick. Both are flatlining.

It's as though something has reached into his chest with a fist and squeezed ruthlessly, relentlessly.

He wants to die too. 

His hands are cold yet sweating profusely, leaving smudges on the window as he watches Rick's motionless body on the operating table and it feels like hours. It has been hours but it could have been days, weeks even. He's lost all sense of time and space and he doesn't even know what day it was when they'd eventually pulled Rick from the wreckage and got him here safe in this bed.

In the ambulance, Mike had said they had been searching the remains for well over an hour after Vyvyan had found him and he'd eventually regained consciousness. Vyvyan knows it's far longer than that. He'd found Neil way before then - on a ledge just below the vertical drop, holding on to the bumper of the bus tangled up in a tree, the rest of the vehicle disintegrating below. He'd made sure Neil was led somewhere stable and flat. Scrambled downwards on jagged rocks as fast as his injured hands would allow. Decended until embers of hot ash had burned into his eyebrows. And watched in horror as the flames engulfed the bus and plumes of acrid smoke filled his lungs.

There had been no point in hanging on after that. No point in anything. Surviving was selfish; a well deserved, final punishment for the way he'd mistreated Rick all these years - for not having the guts to admit how he felt sooner and never acting on it. His own demise is well deserved. Vyvyan looks over the death-defying expanse and lets go.

Some part of his blank mind knows he should ask about the others now but he can't look away long enough to do that. Something might happen, and if it does, he needs to be here. With Rick. 

There's no question about that. If Rick somehow revives (and this is hope Vyvyan cannot admit to, no matter how desperately he clings) then he needs to be here when he does. Rick will no doubt be scared, surrounded by strangers (he'd hate that) and dazed and confused when he eventually comes round. _He has to. He must. He can't bloody leave me like this!_ Vyvyan knows he'll be on a strong cocktail of drugs for a while or the immense pain of it will send him straight back into shock.

Vyvyan wants to go in there and take over. He knows the doctors won't stand for it; they'd sternly informed him that he wasn't allowed to be inside that room - reminded him that he's nowhere near as qualified or experienced yet and it's enough that they've allowed him to stay here in observation. He knows he would tire after hour upon hour of CPR himself, but he could still try, could still contribute in some way. Take it in turns with the other doctors, the way they are now, all four of them. He knows the vast majority of patients with cardiac trauma like this don't have a very positive outcome, but Rick has to. He has to come back. Come back and hate him again. He has to.

The doctors finally concede defeat. They're exhausted and stony-faced when Vyvyan bothers to look at them and he knows Rick's condition isn't reversing.

"Okay. Alright. I'm getting ready to call it. Time of death.."

Vyvyan hears it - the words floating in and out of his consciousness, and he slams his fists into the wall until they're bleeding again. The doctors are giving up on Rick and moving aside, but he isn't. He can't. His own heart is stopping too. 

His hands feel like they're falling in through the glass - his stomach through the floor, his head over a cliff into the meaningless wreckage below. If his limited time studying medicine had taught him anything, it was that in most cases like this, it's only a matter of time before all brain activity ceases and the patient, the deceased, is declared officially dead.

Someone stops near where he's standing and quietly says that he may go inside and wait, if he wants. They know he's a doctor too, well, almost. They know he doesn't need to be told what this means, or what he's supposedly waiting for. The very essence of Rick is fading away, and Vyvyan is permitted to wait with what they are assuming will soon be a corpse. 

Suddenly, he has a thought so ridiculously pointless it makes him want to headbutt and smash the window his forehead stars are digging into; he doesn't know what Rick wants him to do next. Would he want to be buried? Cremated? His body donated to medical science? Did he even have a donor card? Or a will? Should he leave? Attempt to call his parents? Make a fuss? Cry? Scream? Leave him be to die in peace? For a second, that seems to take his stupefied brain ages to process, Vyvyan contemplates whether or not Rick had ever thought about it either; he'd always lived his life like someone who had never expected to die so young. Rick was the sensible one - comparatively, sometimes to a fault, yet threw himself so recklessly into everything - fought physically and violently with him and got himself blown up countless times per week... per day, even.

He doesn't know what Rick wants him to do next.

He should know.

He _should!_

The last of the doctors is pulling off his mask and rolling off his bloodied gloves, disposing of them in the bodily fluid bin. Vyvyan stares at Rick's unmoving form - the tube-feed still forcing air into his lungs, keeping his body as alive as could be, and in that instant, Vyvyan's heart shatters into a million tiny fragments for every stupid thing he'd ever done to him. Every soppy word he'd never said - not only to Rick but to himself. All of those niggling feelings that had been transformed into a raging anger or flayling annoyance, or dealt with by some kind of dismissive, sarcastic humour and a well-timed slap in the face. All of those times Rick had caused him hurt, both physical and emotional. All the time Rick would spend winding him up, apologising, grovelling for forgiveness, never leaving his side and then just as Vyvyan would dare to think about making his move, unashamedly flirting with all manner of girls right there in front of him. Vyvyan would spend the entire night chasing him for a scrap, never taking the time to say, instead, _"Please don't. Don't do that. It hurts. It hurts me so much. I care about you, you selfish bastard. You should be with me, not against me. Why the hell can't you see that yet?"_

Yet..

He closes his eyes and thinks of all the things he hasn't said out loud - will never say out loud again. 

"Fucking love you.." 

His mouth forms Rick's name but no sound comes out.

He needs a miracle. A real one this time. Not a silly magic trick. Not a dream or a fleeting thought that in a different life or a parallel universe, they'd be together for real. Now they can't be. Not in this lifetime anyway. Rick has massive injuries, nearly guaranteed to result in death. Vyvyan knows. It's science. It's biology. It's all the stupid facts he would have learnt properly at college, if he'd bothered to go in more often. Rick would have to agree too. That much blood-loss; he will almost certainly die. Vyvyan can't even think what that means and refuses to accept it. His eyes close shut and he prays to anyone and everything he can think of for another chance - one last miracle.

"I love you, Rick. I always have."

But then, as though in response to both of their unyielding stubbornness, a miracle does happen: Rick's little finger moves. It has to be a mistake, false hope, but Vyvyan's breath catches in his lungs and it can't seem to find its way out again. "Rick!" He yells, louder this time, and it gets the remaining doctor's attention. Then there's an immediate flurry of hysteria and chaos. In the haze of emotions, Vyvyan doesn't know if all the noise is coming from him but it's probable. Rick's fingers are twitching in spasms, which Vyvyan can just about see through the bustle of bodies around the table, and then his eyes flick open. A gust of breath exudes from his lips with the faintest sound of exhalation, and then, as if by magic, all the pieces of Vyvyan's broken heart fuse themselves back together - relief splintering in his stomach like a roll of continuous thunder and he fights the urge to be violently sick again. Rick could still die, he reminds himself, but at least now he's woken up. There is hope now. And it's only now that Vyvyan can allow himself to realise that there wasn't a sliver of hope before.

Eventually, the doctors have Rick stabilised and stitched up. They replace the tube in his mouth with a nasal oxygen pump and leave him to rest as Vyvyan returns to his spot at the window and watches. His oesophagus burns from the force of vomit and stomach acid ejected, and blood is just starting to seep through his clothes from both the soggy bandages on his arm. 

He hates that he feels it. 

Rick had been driving at the time of the crash. Vyvyan had made him switch places not five minutes previous. The bus had driven over a bump in the road, hit a stop sign head-on and thrown him headfirst from the passenger door, leaving him bleeding in the middle of the road, with front row seats to watch his entire world sail through the air and plummet over the cliff edge.

He should have died.

Not Rick.

He should be the one lying there, lifeless and alone. 

This was all his own stupid fault. 

Sometime later, the nurse who'd dealt with his minor scrapes and bruises comes to tell him that Mike is in surgery, and that he's stable and fine. That is some more, much needed relief. Neil is being fussed over in a nearby bed by his parents and two blonde and leggy student nurses and he has a stitched and bandaged head - with one side of his hair shaved almost completely to the skin. Vyvyan can't help but think Rick would have found that hilarious. No. Rick _is going_ to find that hilarious. They can share a laugh about it later.

When Vyvyan is allowed into the operating theatre at last, he finds a chair in the corner and scrapes it over to the bed, still feeling as though this isn't really happening. His body is trembling in shock and emotion, most of it relief, but there's more to it now that he doesn't want to question. They'll be time for all of that later. There has to be. 

The room is extremely quiet, just the humming of various machines. It feels like every one of his muscles has turned to liquid. Now that he's sitting, after hours of standing tensed and rigid and floating in a daze, he doesn’t think he could get out of this chair again if someone holds a gun to his head. 

As he sits here, listening to the oxygen passing back and forth out of Rick's respiratory system, there's a quiet that seeps through him too, right down to the very marrow of his bones. It's the first time he's been inescapably confronted with everything he's refused to think about in detail since the very moment he'd laid eyes on Rick, at that first day at sixth form all those many years ago. Besides all of the long looks and countless near misses - the sometimes gut wrenching moments with Rick on the sofa before bed - where there was a fraction of a second of fear they were going to kiss each other good night, or simply snog each other senseless just for the sheer hell of it and release some of the unbearable tension, Vyvyan had chosen steadfast, again and again, to focus on changing the subject with a last minute biting insult or panicked fist in the face.

If he had dared to kiss Rick, would Rick have kissed him back?

If, for once, he'd put down the cup instead of smashing Rick over the head with it. Sat next to him on the floor instead of kicking him while he was down, would Rick have done the same?

Did Rick feel the same?

Now the unasked questions replay unavoidably.

What about him? 

In the heavy quiet of the room, Vyvyan feels the inner conflict hum like static all around them - conflict he'd always shoved deep down inside of himself as far as it would go. 

If he'd known this was going to happen, would it have been different?

Why was it so difficult to sit here by Rick's side and still feel nothing but crippling self doubt echoing through his mind? All of his anger had long since been replaced by fear. He's too afraid of what will happen to him if he loses Rick - what would be the point in his existence? What's is an antagonist with the protagonist? And what does that thought say about him? Is this normally what people think about when they lose a friend, or a lover, or an enemy?

Rick's hand is pale and motionless on the sheet beside him. Without thinking, Vyvyan reaches out and takes it snugly in his. 

"Bastard."

It isn't meant as an insult, far from it. It's a desperate reach-out. An invitation for interaction, but Vyvyan feels bad anyway and he gives the back of Rick's hand a rub to warm it up. When Rick is stable, he'll be moved to a different room with no machines and apparatus - nothing to get in the way of this. His hand is cool and limp between Vyvyan's warm palms. He doesn't know how to put words to this. It's not like he's afraid that they might be heard, and so bloody what if they were? It was about bloody time! But rather, he doesn't know where to start. They'd wasted too much precious time already.

But what if now _is_ his last chance? 

"Fuck! It's not fucking fair! Why now?!" 

Rick left foot slightly jumps at the outburst. Vyvyan feels like yelling at him to do it again. 

It's _not_ fair.

Given the right set of circumstances, if he'd said something, done something. Looked at Rick in a particular way or simply grabbed hold of him and pinned him down when he was brawling on top of him and beating him to a pulp, at least that would have been something. A refusal. A knock-back. A chance. It had never happened, though, because Vyvyan always had plenty more excuses. More time. More fights. More chances to waste. And now Vyvyan has to wonder if however many years, or if indeed he, had ever meant anything to Rick at all.

What would have happened if they had kept going that way? How much closer could they have become if death hadn't interrupted so finally? How much violence could either endure before something had to give and simply being 'friends' didn't cut it anymore. And as Vyvyan sits here, alone in the dark, everything is suddenly clear. The grief. The yearning. The _love._ He needs to call it what it is: he'd loved Rick until his death. For better or worse, which was usually worse. For richer or poorer, which was always poorer, and in sickness..

Vyvyan bows his head so his forehead touches Rick's knuckles and sobs into the sheets so hard he can't breathe. 

Something in Rick stirs, and, startled, Vyvyan looks up. Ricks brow is creased into a frown. His lips are no longer blue, but he's not speaking yet. Vyvyan still has hold of his hand. He looks over at the clock on the wall. Five o'clock in the morning means nothing. He doesn't know how long he's been sitting here but it feels never ending. Another lifetime ago. He takes a firmer grip on Rick's fingers and they feel more real than before - warmer. Like flesh and blood and bone. Like a human. Not souless like those of a corpse. 

"Rick?" It's all he can think of to say.

Rick's eyes open, bleary and sore. It feels like there's an entire driveway of gravel lodged under his eyelids. He closes them again as the room and contents of his stomach spin back around. "Vyv?" he says faintly - his voice lost in the automatic flow of oxygen that's freezing cold in his sinuses. 

"Here." Vyvyan says, his voice rough as he tightens the vice-like grip on Rick's hand. "I'm right here. I'm not leaving. Don't you dare go anywhere. You hear? If you ever leave me again, I'll kill you."

"Vyvyan," 

Rick says again, sounding shaky and weak. He looks alarmed and in pain, but he's alive, and it's fantastic.

"I fell. My head.. hurts."

"Shh. Yeah, you did. You fell. But you're in hospital. It's okay. You're going to be fine now."

"You saved me."

Fresh, silent tears stream down Vyvyan's cheeks. He'd almost forgotten. How could he forget??

He _had_ tried to save Rick - had grabbed for his hand as the bus toppled over the cliff edge - dug his nails into his wrist and pulled with all his might despite the blood from the laceration on his forearm gushing down into their joined hands - a wound he hadn't even felt at the time. It didn't even need stitches.

"No I didn't. But I tried. I couldn't hold you. Couldn't reach. Sorry. I'm so fucking sorry!"

Oh God. Right on cue, there's those tears again: huge great heaving, suffocating tears that stick in the back of his throat and choke him into silence. 

"I know. I know you did. It's okay. Don't cry."

The tears don't stop. It's exactly what Vyvyan needs to hear, if only he could say his piece too. He puts his forehead on their joined hands again and bawls like a baby, and the sheer release of pent-up emotion is the best thing he's felt all night.

"Don't. Please." 

Rick's voice is still weak but it still gets through. "But you were.. I thought you were.." Vyvyan lifts his face, aware that it's wet. Rick's eyes are open and rounded. Concerned?

"Come here. Look at me." 

"Ugh, why on earth would I want to do that?" Vyvyan manages, his shoulders shuddering with relief, the tears receding. Rick is fully awake and talking. He's going to be okay.

Rick is still confused. The crash, and the pain, and the fall, Vyvyan's terrified ice-blue eyes on him - begging and pleading with him to hold on - to never let go of his hand. All of it is clear. What isn't so easy to piece together is why Vyvyan is still holding it. 

Is he delirious? Dead? Dreaming? It wouldn't be the first time he'd had dreams like that, only usually his head wouldn’t be splitting and blood wouldn't be seeping through a wide open bandage on his chest. He moves his thumb in Vyvyan's grip and Vyvyan loosens it. Rick tightens it again when he looks him in the eye. "Vyv, I can't.." he says again, his voice low and hoarse from having the tube in his airways. "The oxygen. Take it.."

"Oh, yeah, right." Vyvyan's legs shake as he gets to his feet and leans over Rick. The cannula can be uncomfortable once the patient has started to breathe on their own. He huffs and smiles. Maybe he had learnt something at college after all. He lifts the pump away and watches carefully to make sure Rick is doing it correctly. "Go slowly. In and out. No, fully out. From here." He skims his hand lightly over Rick's diaphragm, counting the beats as it rises and falls. "Are you okay?" he asks, kicking himself when he realises how stupid that sounds and kicking himself even harder that he's still bent over Rick, inches away from his face. Rick nods, making a sound that's neither here nor there as he squeezes his hand. 

"Vyv," Rick mumbles. It's the only thing he's capable of saying. He's disorientated but lifts his opposite hand, and, after two shaky attempts, clumsily reaches out to touch Vyvyan's hot, tear-stained cheek. His eyes find those same stark and frightened blue ones of earlier - the pupils still like pin-pricks and terrified but there's something else there too. Something so familiar and vulnerable, yet so undeniable, Rick wonders if the startling blow to the head is such a bad thing after all. He starts to giggle uncontrollably. "You're so stupid, so stupid.." he starts but can't finish.

It's the tears, Vyvyan thinks. Rick is questioning why he's crying over him. Of course Rick would question it. In the whole time they'd known each other, Rick had NEVER seen him cry and it's too late now. There's nowhere else to run. "I was really worried about you. You scared me half to fucking death, you pillock!" Rick doesn't respond verbally but his eyes are smiley and his hands are drawing him closer. Vyvyan doesn't know what he's supposed to do, but he isn't going to deny it this time, and he certainly isn't going to deny Rick of anything right now. Not even their first kiss, if that's what this is. He puts his palm on Rick's cool cheek, still bent over him, their faces becoming closer and closer until Rick's eyes flutter closed and Vyvyan doesn't have to think anymore.

There's no confession, or question, or excuse this time. It's just instinct to cup Rick's jaw in his hand - hold him like this and press their lips together hard. They're finally kissing, and after all the debating and avoiding and lashing out at denial, it's not difficult at all. It's the most obvious thing in the world. He loves Rick - fiercely, and he throws all of it into this kiss, hoping that in some way he can express it without needing to stop, coz he never wants this to end. _I love you, and you died. You left me without ever knowing this, so I'm telling you now. They were only waiting for your brain to stop. Ha! And all the years I said you never had one. Somehow you survived and that's all that matters. I'll never take you for granted again._

Rick is kissing him back, his fingers linking tighter into his as the slight tips of their tongues touch. Vyvyan may need the oxygen more than he does. Rick is so weak he can barely move and he's not able to lift his head, yet the kiss is strong and Rick's other hand pressing in the nape of his neck is getting stronger. After a moment, Vyvyan let's it come naturally to an end, letting Rick rest. Rick looks up at him with an unguarded expression. His face open and soft, unlike anything Vyvyan has ever seen before. 

"I'm sorry." Rick says, looking sheepishly through his eyelashes

"Don't be stupid."

"I didn't know. If I had then I wouldn't.. would never.. I had no idea."

"Why would you? I was a bastard."

"Yeah." 

Rick nods and Vyvyan strokes his forehead, thumbing back sticky strands of bright red, bloodstained hair. "God, I swear if you ever leave me again, Rick. I'll bloody-well kill you." 

Rick bites his lip and smiles through the pain. "Wasn't planning on," he whispers back and coughs. A sudden jolt of pain flashes in his chest. He breathes, with difficulty, his whole body stiffening.

"Shh, easy," Vyvyan keeps his hand on his head, slowly rubbing away the pressure. The pain has got to be unbearable. It's so intense he can almost see it written all over Rick's features. This thought brings him back into focus. "Wait here. Wait for me," Rick nods, hopefully understanding the undertone, "I'll be back in a minute" he murmurs, leaning to brush his lips against Rick anywhere they land. "I'll get someone to give you some painkillers - morphine or something. I'll be right back," Rick nods again and Vyvyan reluctantly gets up from his bedside. He knows he needs to leave the room. He knows it's for the best and that Rick is in desperate need but he doesn't want to go. He doesn't want to even blink to miss a heartbeat of this.

"W-wait.." 

He glances over his shoulder and Rick is still looking at him. 

"Thank you."

"Don't have to thank me."

"But.. wait!"

"What? The sooner I go, the sooner you won't have to feel it."

"Don't be long."

"Won't. I promise." 

Rick fades into a jumble of sleepy pained murmurs as Vyvyan closes the door. He'd give just about anything to swap places and take away his pain, and he was going to, from now on. He would make sure of it.

By the time the nurses have gone again, Rick is soundly sleeping, breathing contentedly by himself. Vyvyan gently moves the cannula to one side and sits down, loosely taking his hand. Hand-holding can be therapeutic for a patient with this level of injury, he reminds himself, justifying his behaviour when there's really no need. He closes his eyes and for the first time in hours, thinks about falling asleep. He can sleep pretty much anywhere so sleeping bunched in this rickety chair with his head in Ricks lap is okay. The nurses seem fine with it. After all, there's no such thing as visiting hours for two people so obviously dependant on each other like this. He'd stay here for as long as it takes so when Rick wakes up he would know everything was for real and everything would be perfect, starting from now.

"Vyvyan,"

"What? What is it? I'm right here," Rick's eyes aren't open but Vyvyan lifts his head just in time to see his smile.

"I love you too."


End file.
